[IMRA note: The Barak Government's public affairs coordinator, Nahman Shai, released the
following "white book" on 20 November 2000. The following is the complete text.
Photographs and a graph in the publication have not been included. While the publication
was distributed by the Government of Israel at an official meeting with the press, for
some reason there is no identifying marking on the publication indicating the source of
the publication, the author or that the Government of Israel is in any way associated with
the publication]

Palestinian Authority and P.L.O. Non-Compliance with signed agreements and commitments: A
record of bad faith and misconduct

November þ2000

Executive Summary

The present wave of violence - led by the Fatah "Tanzim" - is essentially an
attempt by Arafat to achieve, through violence, his maximal political goals: and avoid the
choices necessary to bring the negotiations to a successful conclusion.

Key assumptions have thus been shattered:

* Arafat's conduct following the Camp David Summit indicates he preferred not to face up
to the tough decisions necessary for a historic compromise.

* Instead of responsibility for the welfare of the governed we see him willing to use
Palestinian suffering, including the death of children on the frontline (shamelessly
exploited).

* Rather than take into account Israeli and Jewish sensitivities (side by side with their
own legitimate rights) the Palestinians now prefer to stoke the fires of Islamic
"Identity Politics" ("al-Quds is in danger") so as to walk away from
the negotiations and replace them by international intervention.

The dynamics of "the struggle" took precedence over Palestinian commitments.
Breaches of these obligations include:

* Direct use of violence by Palestinian Police (which Arafat regards, in effect, as the
P.A. military forces) in violent clashes. One of the most serious cases, for which P.A.
Policemen bear at least a major part of the responsibility, was the lynching of two IDF
reservists in Ramallah on October 12,2000.

* Ambivalent attitudes towards terrorism, and at times - outright complicity. Tolerance
towards the Hamas helped open the floodgates of the terrorist campaign of February-March
1996; In the current crisis, P.A. Preventive Security, let alone the "Tanzim"
(militia) of Arafat's Fatah movement, are actively involved in terrorist attacks and
security cooperation has been abandoned almost entirely.

* Failure to collect illegal weapons - thousands of which were left, from 1994 onwards in
the hands of the Tanzim. Various illegal weapons were sighted in the territories in recent
events and during demonstrations and funerals.

* Incitement to Hatred - a key element in the current crisis has been the relentless
effort to mobilize "the Arab masses and destabilize the region - asking "where
is Saladin"? This comes against the background of a broader pattern of education and
public messages, which denigrate the Jews, and reject the possibility of compromise
solutions.

* The size of the Palestinian Police force- well over 40,000 on the payroll - remains in
breach of the Interim Agreement.

* Palestinian Security Organs Operate Outside the Agreed Areas - particularly Preventive
Security, acting in East Jerusalem in open breach of the agreements.

* In Gaza Airport, there have been repeated cases of misconduct, which raise questions
regarding the illegal use of the Airport.

* On Foreign Relations, the P.A. has been acting in breach of the agreements as to its
interim status.

* Economic and Infrastructure agreements and procedures have been regularly ignored.

* Criminal activities on a large scale - from car theft to excise tax fraud - take place
under P.A. auspices.

* In the recent crisis, the P.A. failed to protect Jewish Holy places in Nablus and
Jericho.

It should be recalled that the P.L.O. was not an "unknown quantity" when it came
into the Peace Process: its institutional record - of terrorism, breach of agreements
(with Arab governments - Jordan, Lebanon), and abuse of the "governed" in areas
under its control - meant that extensive formal commitments were required - beginning with
the pledges given to Prime Minister Rabin prior to the signing of the Declaration of
Principles. These, however were often interpreted in a slippery way, or honored only when
it was expedient for Arafat and the P.A. to do so.

Since September 1993 the P.L.O., as an organization, became a signatory to the Declaration
of Principles and Israel's negotiating partner. This meant that on a broad set of issues,
formal commitments were needed - to try and ensure, as much as possible, that the P.L.O.
leadership had clearly broken with past positions, practices and patterns of bad faith,
which had marked its conduct as a coalition of "Fidai" (i.e. terrorist)
organizations.

At various points in their history, the P.L.O. and its constituent organizations were
committed to a strategy of eliminating Israel as a state, (this strategy was embodied, at
the time, in the Palestinian National Covenant). They were implicated in: -

* Abuse and misgovernment in the zones which their "State within a State"
controlled in Lebanon.

It is against this background that Israel felt obliged to demand formal commitments on
some of the most basic and presumably obvious aspects of the process. Such commitments
were indeed obtained; but more often than not, they were interpreted in a slippery way,
particularly as regards the key issues of security, the use of violence, and the
prevention of terrorism.

Against the mounting evidence of bad faith, as detailed below, .Israel - and other parties
engaged in the negotiations - kept alive the hope for a stable peace, based on the
assumption that the process, and its momentum, would modify Arafat's stance on compliance
and on the question of violence as an option. This hope has now been shattered.

As early as Arafat's own speech on the White House lawn, on September 13, 1993, there were
indications that for him, the D.O.P. did not necessarily signify an end to the conflict.
He did not, at any point, relinquish his uniform, symbolic of his status as a
revolutionary commander; moreover, in terms of the broader historic "narrative",
as distinct from the official position at the negotiating table, the map of
"Palestine" remained as it has always been for him, the entire territory of
pre-1948 mandatory Palestine (as the attached photograph, of an August 22 1999 visit to a
school, clearly indicates[photo from Al-Hayat al-Jadida showing Arafat standing next to
such a map].

On various occasions, Arafat continued to use the language of "Jihad", literally
a "Struggle", but in the specific (religiously colored) context of the
Palestinian struggle, a clear reference to the violent option. Thus, in a eulogy to a
Palestinian official  on June 15 1995 (at the height of the Oslo Process) - he paid
homage, among others, to two women terrorists (Dalal al-Mughrabi and 'Abir Wahidi); and
spoke of the children throwing stones as "the Palestinian Generals". He also
swore to his audience (which was clearly sympathetic with the Hamas) that "the oath
is firm to continue this difficult Jihad, this long Jihad, in the path of martyrs, the
path of sacrifices".

Of special interest, in this context, are Arafat's repeated references to the Treaty of
Hudaybiyyah, signed by the Prophet Muhammad with his Meccan enemies when they were still
stronger than him, and then abandoned (as he conquered the city) within a much shorter
time than the Treaty itself warranted. The first such reference made public came shortly
after the signing of the Interim agreement, in the "Jihad" speech he made at the
Mosque in Johannesburg (obtained by the Jewish community, and broadcast in Israel in May
1994).

What Hudaybiyyah means for him was made even clearer when he spoke, a few months later, on
the occasion of the anniversary of the fire in al-Aqsa (an event, in 1968, caused by an
Australian madman, but often used in Palestinian propaganda as proof of Israel's evil
intentions).

"Did the Prophet, Allah's Messenger, the Last of the Prophets, really accept a
humiliation [as "umar bin al-khattab blamed him?] No, and no again. He did not accept
a humiliation. But every situation has its own circumstances" (Palestinian
Television, August 21, 1995).

The reference to the Hudaybiyyah treaty re-surfaced in 1998, coupled with the warning that
"all the options are open to the Palestinian people". (Orbit television, April
18, 1998). In essence, here was a rationale for accepting Oslo and the place at the
negotiations, and the various commitments involved, not as the building blocks of trust
and cooperation but as temporary measures, to be shed off when circumstances allow.

To Muslim audiences, such as the one he had in the Mosque in Johannesburg in May 1994 (one
of the first such speeches in the post-Oslo phase) Arafat - a former Muslim Brother,
forced to leave Nasser's Egypt for that reason in the 1950's - spoke in the familiar idiom
of Islamic radicalism.

To more secular audiences he offered a possible argument for the conditional or .temporary
nature of his commitments by addressing them in the context of the "Strategy of
Stages" for the Liberation of Palestine, as endorsed by the PNC in 1974.

References to the 1974 decision to establish a "Palestinian Authority" on any
piece of land Israel would withdraw from were made by Arafat both on the White house lawn
in September 1993, and on the occasion of the first session of the P.A. Legislative
Council in March 1996 ("al-Ayyam", March 8, 1996).

This instrumental view of the commitment to non-violent means, central as this commitment
may have been to the entire process, was shared by Arafat's lieutenants.

In a speech (documented on video) to a forum in Nablus in January 1996 - again, at a time
when the negotiations were going forward - Nabil Sha'ath described the strategy in terms
which then sounded unrealistic, but now ring familiar:-

"We decided to liberate our homeland step-by-step... Should Israel continue - no
problem. And so, we honor the peace treaties and non-violence... if and when Israel says
"enough"... in that case it is saying that we will return to violence. But this
time it will be with 30,000 armed Palestinian soldiers and in a land with elements of
freedom... If we reach a dead end we will go back to our war and struggle like we did
forty years ago".

Following the change of government in Israel, and three weeks before the actual outbreak
of violence over the opening of the Western Wall tunnel in Jerusalem, a senior Palestinian
Officer - Muhammad Dahlan, the Head of "Preventive Security" in Gaza and
currently complicit in the license given to terrorist activity there - warned
("Al-Hayyat", September 2 1996) that a return to the armed struggle, with the
active participation of the P.A. forces, cannot be ruled out in view of the impasse in the
process.

In the wake of the "Tunnel" events (referred to by the Palestinians as the
"al-Aqsa Campaign"), Arafat spoke at the Dhaisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem,
and again stressed the continuous nature of the Palestinian Jihad ("we know only one
word...") and the fact that "All the options are open".

Others continued to reflect this sentiment. The highest religious functionary in the
Palestinian hierarchy- the Mufti of "Jerusalem and the Palestinian Lands,"
Shaykh lkrimah Sabri, told the Palestinian newspaper "al-Ayyam" (March 3, 1997)
that Jerusalem cannot be retrieved through negotiations, and hence the only option is war.
The Fatah leader in the West Bank, Marwan Barghuti - a key operator in the present crisis
 warned as early as March 1997 that his men are inclined to resume the armed
struggle, and applauded the Hamas bombing in Tel Aviv, in which three women were killed
(al-Ayyam", "al-Hayyat al-Jadidah", March 26, 27 1997).

In a rally on November 15, 1998, Arafat again openly threatened that "the Palestinian
Rifle is ready and we will aim it if they try to prevent us from praying in Jerusalem...
the "Generals of the Stones" are ready". (al-Ayyam, November 16, 1998). In
much the same vein, he spoke to Fatah cadres from the Jerusalem area on the occasion of 31
years after the battle of Karameh, and expressed readiness to face such battles in the
future to defend Palestinian rights ("Haaretz", March 21. 1999).

More recently - to some extent, under the influence of what was perceived as the
"victory" of Hizbullah in Lebanon - references to the violent option
proliferated, and indeed the training of children for the armed struggle was deliberately
used - during the Camp David Summit - as a hint of what was to come if Palestinian demands
were not met.

As the present crisis unfolded, it was Nabil Sha'ath again who offered an explanation as
to what Arafat had meant when he said that "All the options are open": in aninterview with ANN television in London (October 7, 2000) he reminded his interlocutor
that "No one believed him when he used to say it... [but] The choice is not at all
between options of negotiation and fighting: you can have negotiations and fight at the
same time" (as did the Algerians and the Vietnamese). Hence, "the Palestinian
people fight with weapons, with jihad, with Intifada and suicide actions... and it is
destined to always fight and negotiate at the same time."

Specific aspects of non-compliance

The issues listed below are by no means exhaustive. They do, however, prove that the
rationale for non-compliance, as presented above, actually led to a repeated pattern of
abuse, misconduct and outright violence on the part of the P.A.

In this respect, the current crisis does mark a watershed. It has been preceded by
previous "eruptions", including the "Tunnel" Crisis of September 1996,
and the short-lived "Nakba" events in May 2000. Nevertheless, nothing in
previous P.A. practice resembles the collapse of all existing commitments, and the
systematic creation - day by day, week by week - of an atmosphere of raw emotions, fear
and hatred, in pursuit of a general Palestinian and Pan-Arab mobilization.

All of this is not only in breach of the clearly stated commitments offered at the
beginning of the Oslo process, but also in obvious, at times blatant, rejection of the
understandings reached at the recent Sharm al-Sheikh Summit. The overwhelming pattern of
disregard for both written and informal understandings (overt or otherwise), and in
particular the use of an illegally armed militia  answerable to Arafat - in a
Low-Intensity Conflict masked as "popular protest" or an "Intifada",
all confirm that from a Palestinian point of view, the new dynamics of the
"struggle" - and of the call for Arab and International intervention - take
precedence over "pacta sunt servanda".

Beyond the current state of warfare, Palestinian non-compliance encompasses broad aspects
of everyday practice, from school texts to car theft. Some (not all) of these are
discussed here.

Direct Use of Violence

Clearly, the most obvious breach of the Palestinian commitments involves the direct
participation of its armed forces - the Palestinian "Police" (in effect,
Arafat's regular army) and the various Security organs  in armed clashes with the
I.D.F. or in attacks on Israeli citizens.

The pattern evident in the current crisis had already been established in 1996, when
Palestinian policemen played a major role in the extensive clashes that left 15 Israeli
soldiers dead; in effect, they acted as a fighting force - even in places where only hours
earlier some of them participated in the Joint Patrols with the I.D.F., according to the
Interim Agreement.

In the recent crisis, the role of the regular Palestinian forces has been somewhat more
ambiguous - in line with Arafat's interest in keeping his hand half-hidden, and using
mainly his militia forces - the Fatah "Tanzim" or cadres - in the firefights and
attacks on Israeli targets. Still, in the context of the overall crisis.

Local Police commanders were, in fact, given orders, at times, to re-establish law and
order and restore the calm  but their actions often indicated that they felt (or
rather, realized) that such instructions do not fit in with Arafat's broader support for
the struggle (as reflected in the propaganda effort, as detailed below) and were therefore
half-hearted in carrying them out.

In many cases, Palestinian Policemen took an active part in the fighting, in an organized
fashion or as individuals; and there is no evidence (now or on previous occasions) of
disciplinary action being taken against those who did so. There is evidence, moreover, as
to the complicity of Preventive Security operators - particularly in the Gaza Strip - in
armed attacks on the I.D.F. and on Israelis.

Perhaps the most serious event for which the Palestinian police bears a major share of
responsibility in the recent crisis was the lynching of two Israeli reserve soldiers in
Ramallah on October 12, 2000. It was indeed a mob which killed them and mutilated their
bodies: but it had been the Palestinian policemen who captured them, brought them into the
Police Headquarters at the center of town, and then put up only a half-hearted effort to
prevent the attack. So far, the P.A. did nothing to punish those responsible.

Everyday Practices: the Palestinian Security Organs - such as Preventive Security, as well
as the General Intelligence Service and its arm in the West Bank, under Colonel Tawfiq
Tirawi, have been involved in other violent actions in breach of the agreements, such as
the abduction or unlawful arrest of Israeli citizens (in some cases, Israeli Arabs
suspected as "collaborators"), and the murder of Palestinian real estate dealers
(suspected of selling land to Jews).

Another salient case (outside the context of any specific local confrontation - in which a
senior P.A. official acted, in effect, as a terrorist - involved BG (now a Major General)
Ghazi Jabali, the Commander of the Police Force, issuing orders for an attack - actually
carried out by two of his colonels - on settlers in the West bank in July 1997
("Yediot Aharonot", July 18 1997).

Moreover, at various "friction points" (e.g. events in Bethlehem, March 1998;
the Gush Katif road in the Gaza Strip, July 1998; Khan Yunis, February 1999), Palestinian
policemen and members of other organized forces drew weapons in support of violent
demonstrators or in direct confrontations with the I.D.F.

Ambivalence towards, or outright complicity in, acts of terrorism "I want to make it
clear that any arrangement or active understanding between the P.L.O. and the Hamas on the
possibility of continued terrorism by the Hamas, with the consent of the P.L.O., would
preclude an agreement and prevent its implementation" (Prime minister Rabin at the
Knesset, April 18 1994).

In terms of its impact on Israeli society, and hence on the prospects for building the
necessary bridges of trust and cooperation, it was the Palestinian failure to comply with
its commitments on restraining terrorism - and in fact, the periodic courting of the Hamas
and Islamic Jihad as partners in the struggle  which left the most bitter legacy in
1995-1996, and now seems to be repeating itself.

An important development, in this respect, was the understanding between the P.A. and the
Hamas leadership, in preparation for the January 1996 Legislative Council elections - in
effect, encompassing the sort of "rules of the game" for terrorist action that
Prime Minister Rabin had warned against, more than a year earlier. -What the P.A. sought
(in the draft exchanged with the Hamas in October 1995) was "an end to military
operations in or from the National Authority's territory, or declaring them in any
form". (JMCC daily Press Summary, October 12, 1995).

The actual understanding, reached in Cairo between PNC Chairman Salim al-Za'anun and Hamas
leader Khalid Mash'al on December 21 1995 ("al-Quds", December 22, 1995),
allowed the Hamas to "hold on to its reservations" as regards the Palestinian
commitments [to restrain terrorism]; but the movement did undertake "not to aim at
embarrassing the Authority" - i.e., avoid operations which the P.A. could be blamed
for.

In a joint interview ("al-Nahar'", December 23, 1995), Za'anun went so far as to
explain that in the event of an attack in Hebron (then still under Israeli rule) it will
not be the Palestinians' duty to do anything about it; if Israel wants to avoid such
action, it should hurry up and withdraw from the rest of the territories...

This concept was clarified by the PLO representative in the Arab League, Muhammad Subayh,
a few months later: Hamas, he said, had committed itself not to act from inside
Palestinian controlled areas (MENA in Arabic, March 8 1996, in FBIS-NES-96-048, March II).
By the time this revelation was made, the terrorist campaign within Israel - which nearly
brought down the entire process - was already well underway. This only confirmed a general
pattern of negligence - and at times, active complicity, or at least tacit moral support
for the Hamas - on the part of the P.A. and its security organs.

Throughout the early period of consolidation in the areas under its control - from May
1994 onwards - Arafat resisted constant pressures by Israel to restrain the Hamas and
restrict, if not destroy, the infrastructure established by the terrorist organization.
The failure to do so put in question the basic underpinnings of the Oslo accords; and its
most evident outcome was a sharp rise in the number of Israelis who fell prey to terrorist
attacks during this period.

Arafat, throughout this period, continued to embrace the Hamas, in political terms; when
the "Engineer" Yahia 'Ayyash - the man behind many of the worst Hamas attacks -was killed, he came to pay his condolences to the Hamas leader Mahmud al-Zahhar
("al-Quds'\ January 6, 1996). Meanwhile, the Preventive Security Chief in Gaza,
Dahlan, apparently kept his contacts with the leader of the Izz al-Din
al-Qassam" forces - the Hamas military arm - Muhammad Dheif (a childhood friend) and
broke them off only after the second bombing in Jerusalem. ("Haaretz", March 10
1996).

It was the political fallout (including intense international pressure) following the
suicide bombings of February-March 1996 which finally led to a break in this pattern, as
the P.A. belatedly awoke to the consequences of its conduct on this issue.

Still, in March 1997 there was once again more than a hint of a "Green Light "
from Arafat to the Hamas, prior to the bombing in Tel Aviv (later applauded by Barghuti,
as mentioned above): this is implicit in the statement made by a Hamas-affiliated member
of Arafat's Cabinet, Imad Faluji, to an American paper ("Miami Herald", April 5,
1997).

The next few years, in which the question of "reciprocity" took center stage in
the negotiations (culminating in the Wye River memorandum and the attached security
understandings), were marked by mixed results - the pressure for security cooperation did
lead to partial compliance, but no real steps were taken against terrorist
infrastructures; and the "revolving door" practice - i.e., the release of active
terrorists and Hamas/Palestinian Islamic Jihad operators, long before they had served
their terms - became (and remained) a constant problem.

The P.A., since its establishment, has in fact taken a consistently lax attitude towards
terror activists. It did act, in periodic bursts, to arrest some of them, and to respond
(until the recent crisis broke; very rarely since) to specific information from Israel or
other (mostly U.S.) sources on actual attacks being planned; but most of the time: -

* Its policy was to incorporate ex-Fatah "Hawks" (terrorists), members, within
the various security organs. In May 1994, as it entered Gaza, the P.A. commissioned as
policemen, among others, two brothers - Rajih and 'Arnru Abu Sittah - wanted for the
murder of an Israeli in March 1993 ("Yediot Aharonot" May 27 1994). More than 90
"hawks" - some of them murderers of suspected Palestinian
"collaborators"- were recruited in September 1994 ("Haaretz",
September 10, 1994).

* A similar practice applied to non-Fatah operators  on the assumption (often deadly
wrong) that this would "buy them off'. At one point, Ghazi Jabali admitted that more
than 150 members of the "opposition" movements serve in his Police force
(Palestinian television, June 24, 1997).

* It systematically refused, often in blatant disregard of the signed commitment to do so,
to extradite even a single terrorist from the list (over thirty, at one time) demanded by
Israel.

* In cases where the perpetrators of murders and other serious terrorist attacks were in
fact apprehended by the P.A. - at times, claiming that this was little more than
"protective custody" against Israeli retaliation - they were put on trial
overnight and given bogus sentences, so as to render them unavailable for extradition.

One such event - the mock trial of two brothers in Jericho, for the murder of two Israeli
hikers in Wadi Qelt, in September 1995 - gave rise to a sharp reaction in Israel: the
Minister of Education at the time, Prof. Amnon Rubenstein - a strong supporter of the
process - made official note of the fact that the P.A. was doing nothing to educate
Palestinian youth for peace, that its statements were destroying the effort to build
trust, and that a "bad joke" such as the Jericho trial rubs Israeli opinion up
the wrong way. (Education Ministry statement, September 18, 1995).

Failure to collect Illegal Weapons

Within days of the signing of the Interim Agreement, in Cairo, May 1995, The Preventive
Security Chief in the West Bank, Jibril Rajub, made it clear that the Agreement 
while expedient for the Palestinians, given the damage done to their cause by the fall of
the Soviet Union and Saddam's defeat in the Gulf war - would not oblige them to act as
"Lahad's Army" (the SLA, Israel's allies in South Lebanon at the time) in
restraining those who seek to carry out armed actions against Israel.

"As to the question of weapons'  reported "al-Nahar" on May 25 1994 -
"Rajub divided it into three parts: the first, those under national control, i.e. the
weapons in the hands of national factions [such as Fatah] which are directed against the
occupation - those we shall sanction and tolerate out of national responsibility. The
second - those carried, now and in the future, for social or personal reasons, and we
shall study how to deal with them. The third - weapons in the hands of suspected
characters, bandits and spies, which will be collected at all costs".

This clearly meant that no serious effort would be made to implement the unambiguous
commitment to collect all illegal weapons. Fatah members continued to carry arms openly,
and in recent events have displayed items strictly forbidden to be held in P.A.
territories, such as various automatic weapons and hand-grenades. There are indications
that heavier weapons - bought, stolen or smuggled - are in the hands of Palestinian forces
or militias. In one case, a cache of weapons from a stolen I.D.F. vehicle (see
illustration) was commissioned by a Palestinian commander, and retrieved only after
intense pressure on the P.A.

The requirement to collect illegal weapons was therefore re-incorporated in the Wye River
memorandum, and again in the February 2000 Sharm el Sheikh summit. The Palestinians agreed
to design and implement - step by step - a detailed planfor that purpose, but in fact: -

* The "Law of Arms and Ammunition" passed hastily by the P.A. Legislative
Council in the wake of the Wye memorandum falls well short of the requirements outlined in
the Interim Agreement;

* On the ground, Palestinian action has been very limited, as no plan was submitted; on
some occasions, visible raids were made against specific arms merchants in the West bank
and Gaza (for local/personal reasons).

* No further reporting was made to the monitoring commission.

The use of illegally held weapons - particularly in the hands of the "Tanzim" -
thus became a key problem in the present crisis. It is also a problem for Palestinian
society at large: regular reports on the extensive use of such weapons at wedding parties,
etc., has given rise to sharp debate. The answer, as propagated by the nationalist media -
"turn all your gun barrels towards the enemy".

Incitement and the Perpetuation of Hatred Since the Palestinian leadership continued to
look upon the current situation as transitory, no systematic effort was made to re-educate
Palestinian youth, or the public at large, as to the need to accept Israel as a neighbor
and peace as a value. Most of the work done in this respect was carried out by external
NGO's, such as Seeds of Peace.

It took a long and sustained effort to introduce some change and remove explicit
anti-Jewish texts from Palestinian school books, and even so, they do not include any map
showing Israel or even Tel Aviv as a city. As indicated above, there is only one map of
Palestine in use - and displayed in huge format everywhere. Schools and institutions of
higher education are used to perpetuate this historic narrative. The question of education
and incitement was raised at the Wye River talks, and a joint committee was established to
discuss it: but not much action was taken - it was impossible to bridge the basic
conceptual gap - and the committee soon became defunct. The extent of Palestinian efforts
to perpetuate hatred and rejection of Zionism and Israel (and all too often, in more
popular usage, "the Jews") is too broad to cover, beyond certain glaring visual
examples.

In the run-up to the present crisis, two key officials played a salient role in stressing
to the Palestinian public the impossibility of any compromise and the need to prepare for
a confrontation:

* Hasan al-Kashif, the Director-General of the P.A. Ministry of Information, and a daily
commentator in both the electronic media and "al-Ayyam", has been arguing that
since the Palestinians cannot possibly accept the Camp David offers (or any other
departure from the Arab interpretation of 242), they should prepare for a prolonged
struggle (and hoard food);

* Shaikh lkrimah Sabri, Mufti of Jerusalem, kept up  in the context of the
discussion on the future of the Temple Mount, during and after Camp David - a steady flow
of incitement and hatred, raising fears (despite 33 years of Israeli rule) that the Jews
plan to destroy al-Aqsa and rebuild their temple, and the struggle for Jerusalem has
begun.

Once the actual violence erupted, incitement took an unprecedented form, designed to
instill hatred and to mobilize "the Arab Masses". It was marked, above all, by
the incessant exploitation of the terrible visions of Muhammad al-Durra's death (captioned
as an "execution") - as well as visual and highly detailed displays of the dead
and injured, including guided televised tours to the morgue, and close-ups of the wounds.
Woven in with nationalist songs - "where are the millions" [of Arabs], where are
'Umar and Saladin. (armed conquerors of Jerusalem) - this mix is broadcast without respite
for days on end, broken only by the news and by political talk-shows (where participants,
and even more so the callers, vie with each other in the intensity of their anger, hatred
and plans of action against Israel).

In the final statement read by President Clinton at the recent Sharm el-Sheikh summit,
both sides were clearly expected to have committed themselves to put an end to incitement
as well as to violence. That did not happen. For a few hours there was some" toning
down in Palestinian television coverage of what was described as "a peaceful
intifada": but as night fell and the Tanzim kept shooting, the propaganda machinery
took its cue and the constant parade of suffering and death resumed.

The suffering is real enough: so is the use made of it. It is increasingly obvious - even
to Palestinians? - that the mix of violence, and the political exploitation of suffering,
requires children to be pushed forward into harm's way.

Other Aspects of Palestinian non-compliance

The key issues discussed above are by no means exhaustive. On a broad range of other
questions, the Palestinians either knowingly ignored or at least failed to implement the
commitments it has undertook; and its conduct further undermined the very bridges of trust
and cooperation which the interim period was supposed to build.

The Size of the Palestinian Police

The number of Palestinian Policemen (in effect, soldiers) is in constant breach of the
Interim Agreements: when the overall situation was last reviewed, in March 2000, it
continued to exceed the agreed number - 30,000 - by more than 10,000; and only 20,000
among them have had their names submitted for Israeli vetting and approval as required.

The Wye River memorandum, followed by the (first) Sharm el-Sheikh commitments, included a
mechanism designed to put an end to this situation; the Palestinians undertook to transfer
a list of all policemen. In February 2000 they indeed submitted two lists - one for active
service Policemen (26,000)and the other for unemployed men registered as Policemen
(16,000). In any case, the Palestinian side did not act to resolve this case of
non-compliance.

Palestinian Security Organs Operating Outside the Agreed Areas

Another persistent breach of the agreements is the activity by Palestinian policemen/
soldiers (regularly, in "B" areas - which should remain under Israeli security
authority; occasionally in "C" areas - designed to remain fully in Israelihands). Members of the various security organs, particularly Preventive Security, (at all
times and in all areas, including East Jerusalem and Hebron), appear in zones where they
may not operate without prior coordination with the Israeli side.

Breaches of the Agreed Practice at the Gaza(Dahanivvah) Airport

Since the Airport Protocol was signed, a pattern of systematic breaches and disruptions
has emerged: ambulances being used to circumvent inspection (and in one case, on December18, 1999, to run-in a wanted terrorist); workers crowding around the aircraft, disrupting
the agreed procedures; ignoring the protocol provisions for the vetting of workers: and
contracting a cargo facility without notification.

No Action to Implement Agreed Policy on Visitors Permits

As part of a broader pattern of manipulating or violating the rules on immigration and
registration, more than 40,000 people are estimated to have overstayed their visitors
permits in the P.A. areas, and in fact, to have settled as residents, in breach of the
agreements; in some cases, such visitors are known to be in the employ of P.A.
institutions.

Foreign Relations

Much of the P.A.'s network of foreign relations, either bilateral or in terms of
Palestinian participation in international organizations - including the trade agreement
signed with the European, is in contravention of the Interim Agreement, which defined the
limits of its authority (any document, agreement or treaty signed with a foreign entity by
a P.A. "Minister", as distinct from a P.L.O. function, is in breach of the
P.A.s status.

Economic Breaches

The PA systematically blames Israel for mismanagement of PA funds. To its public it claims
that Israel has not transferred 800 million NIS to the PA and that is the reason for lack
of payment to teachers and other public workers. That, in spite of the fact that Israel
had transferred its dues (even during the current crisis) and signed an agreement with the
PA in June 2000 to include purchase tax in the transfers.

The PA refused to acknowledge or pay the debts, which have grown to considerable amounts,
of the municipalities to the Israeli utility companies. Whenever the utility companies
tried to cut their services because of non-payment of debts  the Palestinians blamed
Israel for hurting the population. Another example is the chop-shops which have thrived in
the Palestinian controlled areas.

Infrastructure Breaches

The P.A. regularly ignores agreed planning and zoning, as well as the agreements on
economic cooperation: -

* Building roads and public projects in area "C", where it has no legal
jurisdiction;

* Invading state lands in area "C" and unassigned areas ("white" on
the map) - some 180 such invasions in the Gaza Strip, and 210 in the West Bank, were
counted in February 2000;

* Carrying out unlawful or uncoordinated water and electricity projects;

* Operating broadcasts on uncoordinated frequencies;

Criminal Activity under P.A. Auspices

The Interim Agreement of 1994 committed both sides to cooperate in preventing crime and to
exchange information; the Wye River memorandum in 1998 added a specific Ad Hoc Committee
to discuss their economic relationship, including "Cooperation in combating car
theft".

In fact, however, car theft and other forms of criminal activity continue to thrive, often
on such a scale that it is no longer possible to argue that it could go on unless
sanctioned to some extent by the Palestinian Police and Security organs. There are
indications that they take their cut on this "industry" (most of the 45,000
vehicles stolen in Israel in 1997 are assumed to have ended up in the P.A. areas, stripped
for parts or even "appropriated" by P.A. functionaries - "Haaretz",
August 21, 1998) - and that a well placed call to senior Palestinian officers can in fact
retrieve a stolen vehicle.

Other forms of criminal activity that the P.A. regularly ignored or even sanctioned
involve financial fraud, large-scale excise tax schemes (one of which involved the
Preventive Security Chief in the West Bank, Jibril Rajub - his Israeli accomplices were
arrested and convicted); intellectual property crimes, and marketing sub-standard
products.

Failure to Protect Holy Places

On two major occasions, during the recent crisis, P.A. forces failed to uphold their
Interim Agreement obligations - and in the case of Joseph's Tomb, a promise just given to
Israeli commanders in the Nablus area - to protect holy Jewish sites.

Following Israel's decision to evacuate Joseph's Tomb - so as to avoid further bloodshed -
it was looted, torched and in parts dismantled. Local Palestinian commanders openly stated
that no Israeli would set foot there again; and indeed, one man who apparently wanted to
visit the site was brutally murdered, and a group of hikers (including women and children)
"suspected" of coming too near to the Tomb, were shot at, wounded and one was
killed.

Moreover, in October 12, 2000, Palestinian Police failed to prevent the desecration of the
ancient "Shalom al Yisrael" synagogue in the Jericho area, which was looted and
partly torched.

Belated attempts to undo the damage seem to have been made largely because of the severe
international reaction to these failures to uphold Palestinian commitments (let alone
recognize Jewish religious sensitivities: an atmosphere made worse by the crude arguments,
used by Arafat and others to dismiss any Jewish claim to the Temple Mount) .

The Shattered Assumptions

What does this all add up to?

The very nature of the Oslo Process assumed that over time, if not overnight, a new
reality of bilateral relations would be created on the ground, with an open prospect to
Palestinian Sovereignty in sight. This would lead Arafat away from the option of violence
and "struggle" (which he and others in the P.A. continued to articulate). This
has not happened.

An Irreversible Choice for Peace?

In a recent article, written as a letter to Arafat ("Time to Choose, Yasir",
October 6 2000) the American columnist Thomas Friedman called upon him to choose who he
is: a peacemaker or an unregenerate revolutionary.

The evidence presented in this document - along with his conduct in recent weeks -
strongly suggests that this choice has not yet been made; or else that the P.A. leadership
has opted for violence, in response to the call for "hard decisions" placed upon
it after the Camp David Summit. Arafat had let it be known to the Fatah movement, his key
political and paramilitary instrument, that he expects them to act (and take up arms); and
this action was supported and sustained by the heated intensity of the incitement dished
out by Palestinian media organs - papers, radio stations, and above all by Palestinian
Television.

The option of an armed "intifadha" has been long in preparation, both in terms
of planning (as overall evidence, including the indications from intelligence sources, has
been showing well before the actual outbreak of violence), and in the manner in which
Palestinian and Arab public opinion was worked up against the possibility of compromise on
the key issues.